"He done right," calmly announced one of the twelve good men and true, in the muddy boots and flannel shirt, and every mountain woman in the court room nodded her head in approval of the pronouncement. "Order in the court room. You all shet up and listen," commanded the judge, as father looked around the room and then at him with a stern demand for control of the situation. "Then what happened, Mrs. Bangs?" father continued to question. "I hollered and fought and skeered the mule off into the big woods where he can't be found to keep my husband out of the pen," she answered with a sob. "It took me a week to make him believe about them quilts and then pappy come along and fought him about the mule and found the money, as he claimed he sold the mule fer what was the quilt money." "That will do. Thank you, Mrs. Bangs," said father, with the same deference and tenderness he had used when he began to question her. "Does the prosecution wish to question the witness?" "They ain't no use of questioning her when she says a man give her fifty dollars fer five old quilts," was the answer made by the young prosecuting attorney, who did not rise to his feet to make this remark. "Please ask Mrs. Bangs if the quilts were woven ones of three colors, and then call me to the stand," I said to father quickly. He put the question to the weeping young wife and got an affirmative answer, after which he dismissed her and had the sheriff swear me in. "Can you throw any light upon the matter of the purchase or sale of these quilts, Miss Powers?" father questioned me formally. "If they were old hand-woven, herb-dyed, knitted quilts, they are worth fifty dollars apiece in New York to-day. I paid that for one not five months ago," I said, staring haughtily into the calmly doubting faces of the mountaineers in the jury box and on the benches. "Do you want to question the witness?" my father asked of the indolent young prosecutor. "Don't know who she is and don't believe she is telling the truth," was the laconic refusal of the prosecutor to let me influence his case. "Well, now, Jim, Parson Goodloe here brought the gal along with him and I reckon he can character witness for her," interposed the judge. "Sheriff, swear in the parson." His command was duly executed. "Mr. Goodloe, do you consider Miss Powers a woman who can be depended upon to speak the truth?" father asked him formally. "I do," the Reverend Mr. Goodloe answered quietly, and just for a second a gleam from his eyes under their dull gold brows shot across the distance to me, and if it hadn't all been so serious I should have laughed with glee at his thus having to declare himself about my character in public. But the next moment the situation became much more serious and my heart positively stopped still as I seemed to see prison doors close upon the young husband. "Do you want to question the witness?" father asked of the lolling young prosecutor.